The British Airliner Collection

The British Airliner Collection 2025 sees the 50th anniversary of the Duxford Aviation Society who created and care for the iconic aircraft of the British Airliner Collection.

Registered Charity No: 285809

Before I get into today's dates post here are some important dates for you:Duxford airfield will be closed Dec24-26thIWM...
20/12/2025

Before I get into today's dates post here are some important dates for you:
Duxford airfield will be closed Dec24-26th
IWM will close the Airspace hangar for the day on Jan 6th.
The DAS office is now closed until Jan 6th.
Our Featured aircraft series will be paused until Jan 6th when the VC10 will be open.
All the below dates are subject to change due weather and steward availability

Concorde and Hermes: Open every day (except 24/25/26 Dec) 10.30-3pm.
Trident: Open Dec. 20th.
Viscount: Maybe Open Dec. 20th or 21st.
York: Open Jan 1st.
All others Closed.

Bookshop: Open Dec. 22, 23, 27th. .Jan 1 and 3rd.

Photo: Steve Jeal

19/12/2025

Today's Advent door hides the Short Skyvan/330/360 range. See post text for full details.

The 19th door of our Advent calendar hides the boxy Short designs the Skyvan/Short-330/Sherpa and Short-360.First up was...
19/12/2025

The 19th door of our Advent calendar hides the boxy Short designs the Skyvan/Short-330/Sherpa and Short-360.

First up was the Skyvan, taking to the air for the first time in January 1963. Said to have been inspired by the Miles Aerovan the would see sales of 149 to both military and civil users. Examples of the few airlines that used them are , , , of Norway and . The early versions were fitted with the Astazou engine but this was later replaced by the more powerful Garrett GE331.
August 1974 would see the maiden flight of the larger built primarily as an airliner. 141 would be built and would see service around the world. A modified version with a rear loading ramp was developed for the US military as the C-23 and a follow on order would later see aircraft refitted with the Sherpa rear fuselage. In total around 60 Sherpas were built.
Last up was the single fin Short 360. First flying in July 1981 the redesigned back end allowed an extra row of seats to be fitted giving a capacity of 36 passengers. The 360 saw service with a number of US commuter airlines and it was Suburban Airlines who first placed the 360 in service during November 1982. A total of 165 examples were built and a small number still see service as freighters.

18/12/2025

Today we look at the mighty VC10. Full story in the post text.

Day 18 of our Advent calendar brings us to the early 1960's and the .Designed for use on BOAC's African hot and high ro...
18/12/2025

Day 18 of our Advent calendar brings us to the early 1960's and the .

Designed for use on BOAC's African hot and high routes, the VC10 first flew in June 1962 and 54 would be built. BOAC had wanted to increase its fleet of Boeing 707 aircraft but they were not suitable for the Africa service. They had in 1958 placed an order for 35 Standard VC10s with options on 20 more, this was later cut to just 12 Standard and seven Supers. However, government pressure on the airline finally saw deliveries of 12 Standard and 17 Supers., the government also upped the order it had previously placed for the RAF.
The performance of the was such our Super 'SGC held the subsonic transatlantic speed record with a time of 5 hours 1 minute for 41 years, before it was broken by a British Airways Boeing 747 with help from a strong storm in 2020.
A number of airlines along with BOAC bought the VC10 from new such as : Ghana Airways, East African Airways and British United Airways. Laker also bought the prototype but it never operated in their colours being leased directly to MEA and then sold to .
When retired its VC10s ,14 of the remaining 15 Supers were sold to the for spares and five of these would later be converted into tankers. It thus fell to the RAF to operate the last ever VC10 flight in September of 2013.
Today there are just five complete VC10 airframes left. These can be found at: Hermeskeil in Germany, Brooklands, Cosford, Dunsfold and here at Duxford where you can visit the only Super VC10 still in its airliner configuration.

17/12/2025

Today's featured airliner from our Advent Calendar is the Trident. Full details in the post text.

With just a week to Christmas we today open door 17 of our Advent calendar to reveal the DH .First flying in January 19...
17/12/2025

With just a week to Christmas we today open door 17 of our Advent calendar to reveal the DH .

First flying in January 1962 the Trident was ahead of its time with the Smiths Autoland system and its Doppler driven moving map display. However the design was too closely linked to 's ever changing requirements and sales suffered as a result, only 117 Tridents would be built. BEA was the launch customer with an eventual large fleet of Trident 1C, 2E and 3B versions. The only other major customer was Chinese airline who ordered 33 Trident 2E and two Trident Super 3B airliners, after having a Trident 'Taster' when they purchased four ex PIA Trident 1Es.
Other airlines to buy the Trident were: Channel Airways, BKS, Cyprus Airways, Kuwait Airways, Iraqi Airways and Air Ceylon.
When British Airways retired their fleet in 1985, four Trident 3Bs had been sold to Air Charter Service of Zaire. The final flight of a Trident was believed to have been a Chinese example in 1995.
Several complete Tridents made in to museums, four in China ,a Trident 1C at NELSAM Sunderland, a 3B at RVP Manchester Airport, a 3B at Wroughton with the Science museum , however this is shut away out of public view and of course our 2E here at Duxford.

16/12/2025

Our Advent calendar door today reveals the Avro748/BAe ATP. See the post text for full details.

Today brings us to door 16 of our Advent calendar, behind which we find the and its later development the BAe ATP.The ...
16/12/2025

Today brings us to door 16 of our Advent calendar, behind which we find the and its later development the BAe ATP.

The Avro 748 was the last true Avro design before the company was swallowed up into the Hawker Siddeley group. First flying from Woodford in June 1960, total production would end with 381 built. This number would include the military Andover with its rear cargo door and also the 89 made under licence in India by HAL.
The launch customer for the 748 was UK airline Skyways Coach-Air Ltd and commercial services would begin in 1961. A large customer for the early 748 series 1 was Aerolineas Argentinas. Another big operator was who had a fleet of 26, with the Indian Air Force becoming one of the last operators of the type with 72 examples.
The military Andover with a rear loading ramp was built for the RAF who took 37 on strength, some of these would later be sold to the RNZAF.
Keen to modernise the 748 ,BAe in August 1986 conducted the first flight of the , a turboprop which used much of the 748 in its design. The type was not a big success and only 65 would be built.
In 2025 BAe withdrew the type certificates of both types (ATP in May, 748 in July) effectively grounding the few still flying. Whether this applies to the HAL bult aircraft in India I am not sure.
Here in the UK a 748 has been preserved at Liverpool Speke airport along with an ATP at Ronaldsway on the Isle of Man.

15/12/2025

Day 15 of our Advent posts sees the Vanguard in the spot light. See the post text for full details

Advent day 15....Vickers .Hoping to emulate the success of the Viscount, Vickers offered the larger Vanguard which firs...
15/12/2025

Advent day 15....Vickers .

Hoping to emulate the success of the Viscount, Vickers offered the larger Vanguard which first flew in January 1959. Sadly the time of the big prop was fading away as the travelling public wanted to fly on the new jets, subsequently only 44 Vanguards would be produced.
There was one prototype and just two buyers for the rest. took 20 and 23. BEA was the first to put the Vanguard into service in December 1960, with TCA following a couple of months later.
In 1966 TCA stripped out one of their aircraft and used it for pure freight naming it the Cargoliner. BEA went a step further and began the conversion of nine aircraft into Merchantman freighters fitted with a large forward fuselage door. The first two were completed by ATEL at Southend, the rest by BEA at Heathrow using kits supplied by ATEL. BEA's last passenger Vanguard was withdrawn in June 1974 and the Pax fleet sold off. the Merchantman fleet continued into the British Airways days before being sold in 1979.
The last Merchantman operator was who donated 'PEP to the Brooklands museum. Arriving in October 1996 this flight saw an end to Vanguard/Merchantman operations around the world. This is now the only complete example in existence.

14/12/2025

Day 14 of our Advent posts features the Airspeed Ambassador. Read the post for full details.

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